STOP PRESS: Loeb wins in Wales

Ford Abu Dhabi's Jari-Matti Latvala has won Wales Rally GB today, his first victory since he triumphed on Rally Finland around 18 months ago.

Jari-Matti Latvala has won Wales Rally GB, his first victory since he triumphed on Rally Finland around 18 months ago.

It was a dramatic conclusion to the 2011 World Rally Championship, even though the title fight between Sebastien Loeb and Mikko Hirvonen was decided on Friday in SS7, when the latter went off and damaged his radiator. Mikko's retirement gave Loeb his eighth successive WRC drivers' title, but the drama wasn't over and Seb himself was forced out on the final day, following an accident on the road section after SS18, when he collided with a car, which was on the wrong side of the road. No one was injured, but the Frenchman couldn't continue.

That left Latvala to cruise to the finish today and he took a deserved victory, eventually coming through more than 3.5 minutes up on Mads Ostberg.

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Ostberg also enjoyed a good event and benefitted from the demise of Hirvonen and Loeb to finish the year as he started it in Sweden, on the podium in second place.

Henning Solberg held on to give Ford a clean sweep of the rostrum places, just ahead of Britain's Kris Meeke, in the ever impressive MINI John Cooper Works WRC car. Meeke put in a charge on the final day and cut the gap to 1.8 seconds prior to the final test. However in the Power Stage he spun and had to settle for fourth.

Matthew Wilson completed the top five, albeit more than 1.5 minutes further back, followed by Ott Tanak, who shone on his first outing in his DMACK tyres-shod Ford Fiesta RS WRC.

Evgeny Novikov, Dennis Kuipers, Ken Block and Armindo Araujo rounded out the points' scorers in positions 7 through to 10.

In terms of retirements, in addition to Hirvonen and Loeb, Petter Solberg and Kimi Raikkonen also failed to finish. Solberg was forced out on the road section to Hafren 1 on Saturday when a fuel pump broke, while Kimi went out after going into a ditch in SS12.

Sebastien Ogier and Dani Sordo completed the event, albeit outside the top-ten, having restarted under the SupeRally. Ogier crashed in the very first test, but fought back to take P11, while Sordo went off on Friday in SS5. He finished 20th in his MINI.

Both also did well in the Power Stage, Ogier taking the win, 2.7 seconds up on Sordo in second.